Bush spokesman says ex-president's fever rising

RAMIT PLUSHNICK-MASTI | Associated Press

Published 8:29 am, Wednesday, December 26, 2012

Photo: Charles Krupa

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FILE - In a Tuesday, June 12, 2012 file photo, former President George H.W. Bush, and his wife former first lady Barbara Bush, arrive for the premiere of HBO's new documentary on his life near the family compound in Kennebunkport, Maine. Former President Bush has been hospitalized for about a week in Houston for treatment of a lingering cough. Bush’s chief of staff, Jean Becker, says the 88-year-old former president is being treated for bronchitis at Houston’s Methodist Hospital and is expected to be released by the weekend. He was admitted Friday, Nov. 23, 2012. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa, File) less

FILE - In a Tuesday, June 12, 2012 file photo, former President George H.W. Bush, and his wife former first lady Barbara Bush, arrive for the premiere of HBO's new documentary on his life near the family ... more

Photo: Charles Krupa

Bush spokesman says ex-president's fever rising

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HOUSTON (AP) — A "stubborn" fever that kept former President George H.W. Bush in a hospital over Christmas has gotten worse, and doctors have put him on a liquids-only diet, his spokesman said Wednesday.

Jim McGrath, Bush's spokesman in Houston, had said earlier in the day that the fever had gone away, but he later corrected himself.

"It's an elevated fever, so it's actually gone up in the last day or two," McGrath told The Associated Press. "It's a stubborn fever that won't go away."

Doctors have run tests and are treating the fever with Tylenol, but they still haven't nailed down a cause, McGrath said. Doctors also have put Bush on a liquid diet, though McGrath could not say why.

The bronchitis-like cough that initially brought Bush to the hospital on Nov. 23 has improved, McGrath said. The 88-year-old is now coughing about once a day, he said.

Bush was visited on Christmas by his wife, Barbara, his son, Neil, and Neil's wife, Maria, and a grandson, McGrath said. Bush's daughter, Dorothy, will arrive Wednesday in Houston from Bethesda, Md. The 41st president has also been visited twice by his sons, George W. Bush, the 43rd president, and Jeb Bush, former governor of Florida.

Bush and his wife live in Houston during the winter and spend their summers at a home in Kennebunkport, Maine.

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The former president was a naval aviator in World War II — at one point the youngest in the Navy — and was shot down over the Pacific. He achieved notoriety in retirement for skydiving on at least three of his birthdays since leaving the White House in 1992.